I can't decide
by bagelninja
Summary: David Tennant's Doctor after the death of the Master and the departure of Martha Jones. Can the Doctor find happiness? Warning, gay suggestion.


The TARDIS hummed gently; deceptively quiet within compared to the insane noise of yet another busy London day. It seemed absurd that a mere day past and a year in the future most of the people who now shouted and cried and laughed and _lived _had been dead.

The Toclafane had been exiled to the end of the universe and the balance restored to humanity. Their lives returned to them just to be wasted again. The contrast was almost ironic: the earliest form of modern humans, just starting to reach for the newness of the unknown universe; and their billion billion times descendants lost and dying, forgotten by that same universe.

'I've got to hand it to you

You've played by all the same rules

It takes the truth to fool me

And now you've made me angry'

The TARDIS had been restored to its same gentle self. Its cannibalistic paradoxical nature destroyed along with the future the Master had created.

Martha Jones had returned to her family, leaving the Doctor once again alone with the universe. Now the TARDIS door opened and the Time Lord himself stepped into the spaceship. His face had been etched permanently by the hardship he had suffered at the hands of his one time friend but his eyes retained the same bright wonder.

'I'm not a gangster tonight

Don't want to be a bad guy

I'm just a loner, baby

And now you've gotten in my way'

The Doctor stepped up to the console and pressed the switches and twiddled the dials that lifted the TARDIS and sent it careening into the bright expanse of space though for now he had no destination. Once the wheezing music that was the signature of the TARDIS had deepened to a low pitched hum, the Doctor stepped around the console and crouched, putting himself at eye level with the young man who sat chained to a handrail below the console table upon which the Doctor's severed hand sat.

The Doctor reached out and pulled the perception filter, which took the form of a small key on a string; from around the man's neck, ignoring the bared teeth as he snarled. His eyes were kind as he looked at his prisoner.

The prisoner wore a pair of ragged jeans and a t-shirt with 'FREE SHRUGS' scrawled across it; a relic of Mickey Smith's time in the TARDIS. His black hair stuck out in crazy curls and cowlicks and his blue eyes were bright. His pale face was twisted with anger.

'Release me, Doctor.' The prisoner spat at his captor from where he sat. His arms were curled around the rail, the hands interlocked.

The Doctor shook his head and smiled sadly. 'You know I can't do that, Master.'

The young man ducked his head but when he again raised his eyes to the doctor's they snapped with hatred. 'I was free. For those few seconds before you resurrected me, I was free! And now you've trapped me with this incessant drumming once again!'

'I couldn't allow you to leave me again, Master. Not now that we're alone.' The Doctor reached out but the Master turned away. He continued, 'Alone in this universe.'

The master's eyes snapped back to his with barely concealed fury as he replied, 'So you intend to keep me prisoner here, like some exotic pet you picked up out of curiosity and pity?!'

The Doctor again reached out and this time his hand cupped the Master's cheek. 'You've left me no choice.'

The fury in the master's face faded to confusion and for a moment he looked lost and afraid as he had as a child, looking into the Schism. He made no effort to move away from the Doctor's hand. Bewilderment in his voice he said, 'I still can't decide whether you should live or die, Doctor.'

'No wonder why

My heart feels dead inside

Cold and hard and petrified'

The Doctor leaned in and tenderly brushed their lips together before he smiled. 'We'll figure that out together.' Then he stood and grinned as he turned to the console flicking switches and yanking on levers as the TARDIS once again whooshed to life.

He leaned his head back and sang softly,

'Lock the doors and close the blinds

We're going for a ride!'


End file.
